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Ida Remnants Leave at Least 48 People Dead across Northeast; CNN Reports, White House May Have to Scale Back Ambitious Vaccine Booster Plan; Taliban Fighting Last Major Holdouts in Mountainous Region. Aired 1-1:30p ET

Aired September 03, 2021 - 13:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

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[13:00:00]

ANA CABRERA, CNN NEWSROOM: Hello and thanks for being with us on this Friday. I'm Ana Cabrera in New York.

And right now, President Biden is on his way to Louisiana where Hurricane Ida first unleashed on the U.S. More than 800,000 Americans there still without power and many without basic necessities.

Today, where Ida last hit in the northeast, the devastation and scope of damage is much clearer. At least 48 people killed, six are still missing after historic flash flooding and tornados. Hundreds rescued from flooded homes and cars. There were at least ten confirmed tornados across four states, homes simply gone.

CNN's Pete Muntean is where an EF-2 tornado struck in Pennsylvania. Pete, what kind of damage are you seeing?

PETE MUNTEAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Ana, the officials here are describing this damage as devastating after the EF-2 tornado came through here only less than 48 hours ago. Governor Tom Wolf just finished updating folks here and said that there were hundreds of calls for water rescues. The issue here is not necessarily just flooding, although that has been widespread throughout Montgomery County here in Pennsylvania, where there have been three deaths, maybe a fourth death that we were just learning of.

Governor Tom Wolf of Pennsylvania joins me now. Governor, what's the priority now that we are more than 36 hours away from when the storm passed through? What's the focus?

GOV. TOM WOLF (D-PA): The focus is on cleanup and getting people back to their normal lives as quickly as we possibly can. And you can see given the magnitude of the devastation, that's a big, big job. There are a lot of people working, as I said in my comments earlier. I'm devastated like everybody is by the damage that's been done but I'm really impressed with the extent to which people have come out to help their neighbors. The local emergency management officials have come out and everybody is working really hard. So, they are already at work and have been since this storm passed through last night. MUNTEAN: What goes through your head when you see this damage here in Ft. Washington? You're in other locations earlier. It's hard to get around here in Montgomery County and the flooding is also widespread in the city of Philadelphia. How hard is it to see?

WOLF: It's very hard. Unfortunately, we've seen this increasingly around the commonwealth. In the western part of the state, north central, southeastern part of the state, southeastern part of the state, northeastern part of the state. I mean, there is no area of Pennsylvania that has been unaffected over the last, at least during my term of office, seven years now, to this kind of devastation and it's just very sad because it's something that you look at and say, could we have done anything different? We're always looking to learn from that. But so often, it's just -- this is the way nature works, the weather works and, you know, unfortunately, we're the weather's unwilling victims.

MUNTEAN: When you think about this weather and it becoming more extreme, how much of this damage do you attribute to climate change?

WOLF: Most of it. I mean the storms -- there are a couple of things that are happening. The storms seem to be more localized and more intense. The temperatures in the Gulf of Mexico that caused Hurricane Ida are warmer than normal. I don't know how many, 2 degrees warmer than normal, and that heat -- I'm not a meteorologist, but that heat does generate the kind of energy that increases the intensity of storms like Ida. And that's what we're seeing in Pennsylvania.

So what I've seen in my last seven years are these localized storms, storms that actually, in some cases, occur outside of flood plains and that cause a lot of damage. And, you know, it's climate change.

MUNTEAN: We have a mortal cost here of four, maybe more deaths, three here in Montgomery County. The monetary costs, no official estimate yet, but maybe in the billions. When you think about the cost also to beef up this infrastructure to make it more climate-resilient, which is a term being thrown in the conversation, as we learn more about this damage, what is your message to those in Washington? What is your message to those in Harrisburg, because I know some legislators are big climate deniers?

WOLF: Yes. No, I think fewer and fewer people are climate deniers these days. I think the more you see this kind of thing, the indiscriminate and intense nature of the storms, I'm not sure how you can sit on the sidelines and say we don't need to do anything. We need to do things. And we have to have a robust conversation about what we need to do. But I think we've got to come to grips with the idea that we can't ignore this.

MUNTEAN: Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf, thank you so much.

WOLF: Thanks. It's good to see you.

MUNTEAN: I appreciate it. Good to see you.

[13:05:00] Governor Tom Wolf live with us on CNN. Hundreds of calls for water rescues here in Montgomery County, three, maybe four deaths. We're learning of a possible fourth death here. And damage, we're just getting a glimpse of it, maybe in the hundreds of millions, maybe in the billions. No official estimate yet. But now begins the process of trying to get federal aid, which does take a little bit of time, officials are warning here, and that process is just beginning now. Ana?

CABRERA: And, obviously, there's so much cleanup to done as we see that big crumpled roof behind you. Pete Muntean in Pennsylvania, thank you.

To Louisiana now and President Biden is on his way there. More than 800,000 people are experiencing their fifth day without power.

CNN's Adrienne Broaddus is live in New Orleans. Adrienne, the desperation just for basic supplies is growing ahead of the president's visit, isn't it?

ADRIENNE BROADDUS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, the desperation is growing. And we're going to remix this for you a little bit. Before we show you the long lines, I want you to hear from the people who were impacted.

You've heard from the people who have been waiting for gas, but I want you to meet a man who's been camped out here all day. He was here yesterday. And he is one of the employees, in fact, the owner's son, administering the gas. And one of the first things I noticed, Abdullah, is that you're packing heat. Talk to me about why and what has happened here.

ABDULLAH HUMMUS, GAS STATION EMPLOYEE: So there have been multiple incidents where people have pulled guns on us for very belligerent reasons, waiting in line too long, thinking we're ripping them off. We're actually one of the only gas stations in the greater New Orleans area that's charging the exact same prices that we've been charging before the hurricane, during the pandemic. And we've been giving out free ice, free water multiple days and we're trying to help the community in every aspect that we can because that's what New Orleans is about, resilience, helping each other out, mutual relationship. Nothing is mutually exclusive. And we're really trying our best to keep peace and order. But our best is not enough right now.

BROADDUS: And I'm going to come here talk to you, I want to be eye level. And I know noticed you've been keeping the folks calm. Why is there a wait now? People are waiting for gas. Did you run out? What's happening?

HUMMUS: We didn't run out of gas, overall. We have only premium as of now. Our generators every few hours shut off and it takes about 20, 30 minutes to restart them. We did run out of regular gas, but every few hours, an 18-wheeler comes with a load. The state troopers have to go escort it off the highway so looters and whatnot don't have to do whatever they do.

BROADDUS: And before I take off, I just want to know, do you feel safe?

HUMMUS: I mean this isn't anything I'm not really used to, even before all of this. We've got guns pulled on us and robberies. And somebody right after the hurricane, they shot an A.K. through the window trying to rob like the store, but we have bulletproof glass. And I'm okay. I mean I'm keeping it going. And I feel okay. I'm all right.

BROADDUS: Well, we thank you for your time. He said he feels safe, guys, but he is packing heat after someone pulled a gun on him simply because they wanted gasoline. Ana?

CABRERA: Emotions are high, desperation is high. People are hungry, they're tired, they are looking for hope in some fashion. Adrienne Broaddus, thank you for continuing to bring those stories to us.

For hospitals in New Orleans, it has been compounding crises between power outages, the heat and COVID.

Joining us now is Dr. Mark Kline, he is Physician-in-Chief and Chief Academic Officer at Children's Hospital New Orleans. Thank you so much for joining us, Doctor.

I know you've worked for days through the worst of the storm at your hospital, as it was running on generators. You recently had a relief crew come in so you could have a break. I understand you're in constant contact with your teams there and the power is back on in your hospital, but much of the community is still without, as we've been discussing. What's the biggest challenge your staff is facing right now?

DR. MARK KLINE, PHYSICIAN-IN-CHIEF AND CHIEF ACADEMIC OFFICER, CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL NEW ORLEANS: Ana, I think the biggest challenge right now is that many of our staff have lost their homes entirely or they are living in homes that, frankly, have been damaged so severely that they're unlivable at this point. Many evacuated and have not come back. They're in Houston or Dallas or Atlanta. And so we're having some difficulty staffing the hospital. And because we're a safety net institution for children from across Louisiana, that's obviously of significant concern to us.

CABRERA: And I know you had to evacuate because you don't have power, you don't have water at your house, but you're getting ready to head back soon. Prior to the storm, you already had an influx of pediatric patients because of COVID and now there is life-threatening heat. You talk about staffing shortages. How do you plan to handle it all?

[13:10:00]

KLINE: Well, it's a lot at one time. You know, the same people who were exhausted after months of dealing with the surge, the COVID surge, are the same people who are now doubly exhausted after dealing with Hurricane Ida. The last thing in the world we needed at this point was a category 4 hurricane.

We've got to get people back. We've got to provide them with temporary housing, places where they can shower, air-conditioning so that they can be out of this 100-degree heat index-type situation, clean water, food. We've got to do all of those things. And so we're doing our best to step up as a hospital and provide those things to the staff.

It's a tough situation And I can't help but think that Ida is going to reverse some of the progress that we'd made on COVID-19. We had just turned a corner and began to see our numbers decrease, but now we've got people congregated in shelters and in homes together and distancing really isn't possible and mask use is intermittent. And so for a variety of reasons, I have a feeling that we're going to have another surge of COVID on our hands in the days ahead.

CABRERA: There are reports that three of your sickest patients were flown to Texas Children's Hospital for care this week. What more can you tell us about these patients and why you couldn't care for them?

KLINE: Well, that was actually another facility in New Orleans that flew those patients to Texas. We have not had to transfer any patients, thankfully. We've managed to care for all of the kids that are in our hospital. But we've got some very seriously and critically ill children. We actually lost a two-year-old child to COVID on the night of the hurricane, which was very -- a very sad event obviously for everyone.

CABRERA: Oh, that is just heartbreaking. Dr. Mark Kline, thank you for sharing with us, wishing you the best of luck and strength as you continue forward.

KLINE: Thank you, Ana.

CABRERA: One day after Dr. Fauci defended COVID booster shots, we are learning the White House may have to scale back its plan to administer them. What is going on here?

And while we're talking vaccines, the president says the folks who haven't gotten the shot aren't helping the nation's economic recovery. More on the disappointing jobs report. Stay with us.

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CABRERA: Today, more mixed messages on COVID boosters. CNN has learned that some top federal health officials now want the White House to scale back its booster plan, which is due to roll out in just a couple of weeks.

CNN's Elizabeth Cohen is here with us. What have you learned, Elizabeth?

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Ana, when the White House announced a few weeks ago that the booster rollout was going to start September 20th, it had a lot of people scratching their heads about why they were making that announcement when the FDA and CDC had not weighed in on it. That's usually not the order of things. Usually, the FDA and CDC weigh in and then there is an announcement. And so what we're hearing from sources is that the issue is that while Pfizer has applied to start this booster rollout and while we have data on Pfizer and there's a meeting on September 17th of FDA advisers to talk about Pfizer, that's not true of the other two vaccines.

So let's take a look at sort of how many Americans have gotten which vaccine. So, as you can see, Pfizer is clearly most people have gotten that, 54 percent of Americans. 38 percent of Americans who are vaccinated got Moderna and only 8 percent have gotten Johnson & Johnson. So the question becomes, all right, even if Pfizer looks good to start rolling out third doses, what about people who got Moderna and J&J? That's a huge chunk of people, what about them? So, it sounds like what we're hearing is that some folks within the Biden administration are saying, hold on, maybe we need to sort of pull the reins on this. Ana?

CABRERA: This has been so confusing though. What does it say about the messaging?

COHEN: Right. I mean, it was just yesterday that Dr. Fauci was talking about basically, look, it seems like now is the time for boosters. It's not great. Messaging has been so crucial in this entire vaccine endeavor, with such a huge chunk of Americans saying no to the vaccine because they have heard misinformation. Messaging has been crucial. It is not great that there is yet another round here of confusion, of misinformation. Are boosters good, should we be getting them, should we not? I think there's going to be a lot of hand wringing about this in the Biden administration. How could this have been done better?

CABRERA: All right. Elizabeth Cohen, thank you.

President Biden trying to spin a disappointing August jobs report which showed the U.S. added just 235,000 jobs last month. It is a couple hundred thousand more but way below expectations.

I want to get straight to CNN's Matt Egan. Matt, break down the numbers for us.

MATT EGAN, CNN BUSINESS LEAD WRITER: Well, Ana, this was a shocker, just 235,000 jobs added in August. That is a huge slowdown from July, when 1.1 million jobs were added, also from June, when nearly a million jobs were added.

To give you some context, today's report wasn't just weaker than expected, it was actually weaker than even the most pessimistic forecast from Wall Street economists. The silver lining here is that the unemployment rate dropped to 5.2 percent. That is the lowest of the pandemic. And it really is a big improvement from the spring of 2020 when unemployment hit nearly 15 percent as COVID was raging.

But the big concern is that today's report shows that the recovery is losing some serious momentum and a lot of that is because of the delta variant.

[13:20:05] Just look at what's happening in the leisure and hospitality sector, where job growth had been humming along in recent months and just crashed to zero in August. That was because there's been a slowdown in hiring at hotels and a loss of jobs among bartenders, waiters and waitresses. That is alarming, because this leisure and hospitality sector is the one that is most closely linked to the reopening of the economy and it's the one that has the furthest to go to get back to pre-crisis levels.

Ana, big picture, there's no doubt the economy is in a better place than it was a year ago. It is moving in the right direction, but the concern, and you can see it on that chart there, is that the improvement in the job market seems to be leveling out a little bit and the pandemic continues to be a negative for this recovery.

CABRERA: It is a grind, no doubt about it. Matt Egan, thank you so much.

From a chaotic scene in Afghanistan to a rural Wisconsin town, what is next for thousands of refugees who escaped violence for a new life?

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CABRERA: An update from Afghanistan. CNN has learned of heavy fighting against the Taliban in a rugged area north of Kabul, the last major holdouts against the extremist group now running the country. A source for the National Resistance Front tells CNN the fighting has been ongoing for two weeks now.

Meanwhile, the United Nations is resuming aid flights to help millions of Afghan civilians. The U.N. says the effort is delivering food, medicine and other emergency supplies to 160 humanitarian groups across that country.

In the capital, a bold street protest as Afghan women demand equal rights and full participation in politics, this as the Taliban are expected to form a government in the coming days.

Now, for Afghans lucky enough to have made it out, the new challenge of finding a permanent home begins. CNN's Omar Jimenez traveled to Wisconsin where hundreds of starting an American journey that one man remembers vividly.

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MARCOS ANDRES HERNANDEZ CALDERON, FORMER CUBAN REFUGEE: I wanted to learn the language. I wanted to learn the American way.

OMAR JIMENEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You weren't even sure what it was going to be like outside the fort when you got here.

CALDERON: No, no.

JIMENEZ (voice over): Marcos Calderon lives in Lacrosse, Wisconsin, near Ft. McCoy, the current temporary home for up to 13,000 recently evacuated Afghan refugees. The actual number isn't disclosed. But he knows their situations all too well. He was one of the thousands who came to the same Ft. McCoy fleeing Fidel Castro's Cuba as a refugee over 40 years ago, first coming by boat to Southern Florida.

CALDERON: You can see how your country disappear in your eyes. You don't know when you're going to go back there, when you're going to see your family again.

JIMENEZ: it has to have been scary. You're picking up and leaving everything that you knew behind to go to a place where you don't know anything.

CALDERON: You have to be in somebody else's shoes so you know how they feel. It's nice. Being separated from your family, coming to a country where you just don't know anything, and I don't know the language, don't know the people, I don't know how the people's (INAUDIBLE) life what is like here.

JIMENEZ: With refugees flowing into the fort, it's left some on the outside with concern from politicians.

SEN. RON JOHNSON (R-WI): If we let some people slip through that create acts of terror, that's going to poison the entire operation and that would be -- that would be a travesty.

JIMENEZ: Two members of the public in nearby Sparta, Wisconsin.

ERICA CULPITT, SPARTA RESIDENT: One of the things I'm concerned about is just the overall safety of the citizens in our community.

There's just a huge cultural difference.

MICHELLE HAMILTON, SPARTA RESIDENT: It's a little scary because we don't know them. But at the same token, they're people, they're scared too. I think that we should help them because they're still human.

JIMENEZ: And many have helped, donating clothes, shoes, anything they can.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We are literally flying the airplane as we build it. So, every day is a constant iteration on how we receive the goods, how we continue to do this better in a more efficient manner. And we need to make sure that we can provide those basics as they move forward.

JIMENEZ: Most of the refugees from Ft. McCoy won't be settled in the surrounding area. National resettlement agencies work with local affiliates to get them into communities across the country.

For Calderon and other Cubans like him, the advice for this generation of refugees is simple.

CALDERON: Do good for others. Show the United States of America that what they have done for them in there, it has been a good thing and they are grateful to be here and receive this help. JIMENEZ: Knowing what they had to leave behind.

CALDERON: It's very hard, you know. People think it's easy being separated from your country and seeing the other people going through the same thing that I went through.

[13:30:03]

Yes, it's memories there that you cannot erase it.